You Are Dumb, which is not a blog, posts new columns when it can manage to in these troubled Trumpian times. It is also a Twitter feed, @youaredumb, with content in a similar vein but much shorter. For a take on what a blog by me would be like, check out OLDNERD.

June 26th

I’m not shitting on Democrats in today’s loose adaptation of IDIOTS SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS because Republicans aren’t worse. I’m shitting on them because just because we have to vote for them doesn’t mean we can’t do it with our eyes wide open to their perfidy so that once we wrench power from the hands of the court-stacking xenophobic assholes, the entrenched center-right power structure of the Democratic party knows they can fucking well be replaced too.

"I think the norms have really changed in terms of, what you can do to somebody against their will, how much you can crowd their space, make them miserable at work.” - Bill Clinton, doing a book tour in the middle of the MeToo movement because he’s a Clinton and they always have the best ideas.

I’ve been holding on to this for weeks while the world burns because no, seriously, can Bill Clinton go away and never come back? Just buy a house somewhere and sit in it and get your hookers delivered and run whatever charities you want to run and hire spokespeople for those charities that aren’t you and don’t say stupid shit like this. It’s the exact opposite of helpful. Can’t James Patterson and whoever ghostwrote the book for both of you do interviews?

The norms that have changed aren’t the norms that it’s wrong to do things to people against their will. That’s pretty much the baseline for a whole bunch of our laws. The norm was letting men get away with it to a degree proportional to their wealth and power. And this norm’s only changed a little, as evidenced by the fact that I still have to ask American society to get Bill Clinton the fuck out of our shared cultural space.

"In the crucial months ahead, we must strive to make America beautiful again. Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable. As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea.” - Nancy Pelosi, turning “when they go low, we go high” into “when they jail children, we tone police our side so Republicans don’t get upset.”

Pelosi was clearly subtweeting Maxine Waters. Well, OK, once her 23-year-old aide explained to her what subtweeting was, she was clearly subtweeting Maxine Waters. Waters, after over a year of being the victim of racist attacks on Twitter from the President of the United States, had the unmitigated gall to suggest that none of these assholes should get to participate in polite society. This was immediately branded a “call to violence” by people terrified of being excluded from brunch, and as a prominent advocate of District of Columbia brunches, Pelosi took the side of the assholes.

The thing about refusing them service at nice restaurants and yelling at them when they try to put gas in their cars and yes, being fucking uncivil at them is that it’s the thing they truly loathe the most. Even these armchair fascists know that power is fleeting, that jail time is a distant possibility. But the idea that they could be monsters all day long, seven days a week, and then not be able to go to parties and live the D.C. high life and go to see Hamilton (Hi, MIke Pence!) and just generally be part of the liberal worlds of culture, food, and entertainment they spend their day jobs decrying? That idea is anathema.

And D.C. culture has evolved into the perfect enabling machine for this, which is why Nancy Pelosi instinctively defended it. This is the culture that embraced Henry Kissinger, Strom Thurmond, Billy Graham, and the entire Bush torture regime. It’s non-partisan. It’s the system protecting its own even when its own has been taken over by a rapacious virus.

When they talk about civility, they’re not talking about “being nice”. They’re talking about not upsetting the social order that would make it uncomfortable to mingle with war criminals at cocktail parties.

SEAN SPICER IS SHOPPING AN INTERVIEW SHOW, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, AND HE WANTS TO CALL IT “COMMON GROUND” LIKE HE DIDN’T HIDE IN THE FUCKING BUSHES AFTER BEING FIRED FROM HIS JOB LYING ABOUT THE CROWD SIZE OF A SERIAL SEXUAL ASSAULTER.

And the best part? We still have to vote for Bill Clintons and Nancy Pelosis in general elections because they’re not baby-jailing fascists. But that doesn’t mean these fuckers should be safe during primary season.